


Serendipity

by omnomeevee



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 16:05:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19337899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omnomeevee/pseuds/omnomeevee
Summary: Seren would have never guessed that these embarrassing encounters with one particular boy would turn out to be a fortunate happenstance or even a pleasant surprise.





	Serendipity

The first time they ran into each other was by a total whim.

Normally, Seren would go home and eat whatever she had laying around. Seren or Nix would cook and the rest of they would pick off of that for a few days. Today though, she decided to go and have lunch. There was a small little taco place she hadn’t tried and she was craving it. So, she went in and stood in line. There were few people there, but the guy in front of her seemed to be ordering a whole lot. Tall, with a mop of messy blonde hair, he kept ordering for what seemed like 10 minutes. When Seren stood up at the counter, only ordering for herself, she grabbed her can of pop and sat down, waiting for her number to be called. She had drawn the world around her out and tapped on the top of her pop, hoping that it would be settled enough to open.

To her dismay, it was not and she hadn’t anticipated it. She jumped back, holding the can out far away from her. As she turned around, the fizz splashed from the top and on to this tall, blonde boy who was just getting ready to walk out of the door. His white shirt now stained with a light orange.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry. Oh my god.” She can’t bare to look up at the boy, as her face is flushed red. She sets the now half empty can down on the table and grabs all the napkins she can, handing some to this poor guy, who she was almost positive was going to say something rude to her the second she stopped acting like a spaz. She went to try and dap his shirt for him, feeling terrible.

The boy laughed, swatting her hand away. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it. I was headed home anyways.”

Seren’s shoulders dropped as she relaxed a bit. She looked up at him, looking into big brown eyes. “Really, I’m so sorry.” she muttered.

“Really, don’t worry about it.” He called to her as he rushed out the door, smiling from ear to ear.

Seren’s number was called, and instead of staying and eating, she decided to go home after all.

The next time, Mark was free for a small amount of time and decided to take a run. It was a bright, sunny day and he popped his headphones in and just jogged to his heart's content. Normally, he’d go to the park but he didn’t have the time to do it today, so he ran the not so busy sidewalks on the side streets.

Seren normally walked to work on the nice days. It was easier to walk from house to house then to get in the car, start it up and then get out and do it all over again. She too put headphones in and paid more mind to the pretty sights around her. Humming along to some songs as she did small little moments that might be able to be called dancing if she wasn’t walking. The wind blows softly and the trees swayed with it. The sun would fade in and out behind clouds. It was warm, but if you weren’t doing anything too busy, it was bearable. Foolishly, Seren closed her eyes for a second as she walked.

Mark kept his pace as he turned the corner, having broken a sweat in the heat. Seren is knocked back into reality by coming face first with his chest. Mark stumbles back and runs his hand through his hair. Seren looks up, and realizes who she just ran into. She falls into herself a bit, having a bit of a flashback of their first meeting. She feels her face go red again, reliving it. Of course, out of all people, it’s him again. Like she wasn’t embarrassed enough the first time.

A smile writes itself all over Mark’s face. Toothy, his cheek bones seem to get more proximate. His eyes shone in the sunlight. Seren catches herself staring a bit, and shakes her head coming back to. “Nice running into you again.” He confidently spits out, knowing how cheesy he sounds. Seren is almost positive he can see her face twisted into a cringe. She lets out a sigh, agreeing with him in the end, even though she can’t help but feel the heat run up her neck. He looks as if he’s going to say something more until his phone rings. “I’m sorry, I’ve gotta take this.” He says, turning around and talking in a fast, hushed voice in Korean as he walks away. Seren watches him turn around and wave at her, signaling that he’s got to go.

She catches herself laughing every time she walks past that corner for the next week on her way to the houses she dog sits for.

Seren picks up a few more hours at a retail job she has, so she cuts down her dog walking hours. This means, instead of walking 2 dogs at a time, she’s now walking 6 just to manage to squeeze them all in. She’s not worried about it as she walks through the small town she’s in. The dogs all walk pretty well and listen, most of the time. One of the clients has a particularly rambunctious and large puppy, so the pup is still learning and Seren figures being with five other well behaved dogs might serve the pup well, so she agrees to take him on her busy walk.

With so many dogs, the leashes inevitability get tangled around. Seren lets it slide until she gets to the more open park. She twists around and untangled all she can, not paying attention around her. The rambunctious, not so little guy is hopping around until he locks on a small animal scampering across the grass. Before Seren has the chance to notice, the dog runs off, taking Seren and the other dogs with him. There’s no way this nearly five foot girl can stop these dogs so she has no choice but to hold on and “enjoy” the ride.

She can see three guys at the basketball court look at the comotion of her being dragged. The tallest one of the three lets out an involuntary laugh that catches the attention of a few of the dogs and the direction in which Seren is running is changed; directly towards this group of guys. She tries her hardest to stop them, but it's no use. The dogs, unsure of who made the noise, run right to the first one they see. Seren’s heart drops as she is now entangled with someone and she knows exactly who it is. “Jesus Christ not again..” Seren whispers to herself.

Mark laughs and she can feel it through his shirt. She panics again, realizing how close she is to this guy. He tries to untangle himself as his friends giggle behind him. The tall one can’t stop and the slightly shorter of the two isn’t helping either as Seren tries to pull away from Mark, who has taken a few of the leashes in his hands and hands them to her. He shoots a look at his friends and before he can say anything to Seren, she is off, trying to get away from the situation.

“I’ll probably see you around!” Mark calls out to her as she walks away, laughing to himself. The tall one lets out an obnoxious screech as Mark says it.

A few days after the dog incident, Seren enlists her best friend to go with her to get everyone a drink from starbucks before they come over, and Cordelia relauntly agrees. As they're standing around waiting for their order, they hear it get called and a tall boy with dark hair grabs it before rushing out the door. Seren watches in confusion, knowing that that was their order and not his. As he walks past the window, Seren realizes who it was and grabs Cordy’s arm without saying a word and walks out the coffee shop.

“Ren, we didn’t get our drinks…” She blurts out, trying to pull seren back.

“Yes, I know, because he has them…” Seren points a bit, trying to not make it obvious.

“Star, we can't just follow him.. For coffee… We’ll just order again.” Cordelia scolds Seren for the strange behavior, trying to be quiet.

“No, no, you don’t get it. That's him. The one I keep running into.” Seren whispers back.

“No fucking way, what’s his name?”

“I've got no clue! But he’s cute and it’s intimidating.” Seren covers her mouth when she says it, realizing she was a bit loud. Her eyes go wide as she stares back and forth between Cordelia and the back of this boy's head. Especially since I keep running into him, literally, she thinks. She nearly stops in her tracks and bolts in the opposite direction, but she doesn’t have the time to.

Mark smiles before he turns around. “I’m sorry, can I help you?” He flashes a smile at Seren and her face flushes. He heard them talking.

“Uh, um..” Seren stammers, unable to think of what to say.

“Those are our coffees…” Cordy is able to say, pointing.

“Oh, my bad. I was just in a rush. Take them, I’ve gotta run back and get the right ones..” He walks past them. “Thanks for catching up to me! You saved me an extra trip!” He's walking backwards and, as if on cue, trips over his own feet. He catches himself and hurries off.

“Oh good god he’s as clumsy as you.” Cordy says as they walk in the opposite direction.

At this point, Seren is now nervous just about anytime she goes out because it’s like some weird force keeps making her and this one particular person run into each other. So when it’s her turn to go to the store for the week, she has to have a pep talk with herself before hand. There’s absolutely no way that he would just so happen to be at the store the same day and time as her.

The shopping goes smoothly and there’s no awkward run ins. Unfortunately though, Seren is short. Sometimes, things are a bit too far up for her to reach, and because she's too stubborn to ask for help, she just climbs up. She’s never had an issue before and sees no difference in today.

Mark has his hands in his pockets as he goes to look and see the price for something that his friend forgot to check. As he walks down the aisle, he sees a new familiar face. He stops, settling himself back to watch and see what Seren is doing. He shakes his head as a smile pulls at his lips. His shoes click as he walks towards her and he peeked his head around to look at her. “Would you like some help?” He asks softly.

Seren was oblivious to him, so hearing his voice startled her. In the process, she loses her balance. She tries to grab on to something and much to her panicked surprise, of course the boxes of cereal are no help. As she comes falling down, so do several rows of cereal. Mark tries to catch her but isn’t expecting the whole thing so he isn’t able to. Seren lands on her butt, and glares up at Mark as she settles among the mess.

Mark offers his hand to help her up off the floor. Seren shyily takes it. His hand lingers for a second before he lets go. “Thanks a lot…” She stops, realizing after all these times, she’s never bothered to ask him his name. “What's your name?”

“Mark.”

“Thanks a lot Mark.” She says, sarcastically, glancing around the mess she made because of him. Seren dusts herself off and sheepishly goes to talk to a worker to tell them about the mess. When Screen turns around, Mark isn’t there anymore. Mark looks around before he walks off and laughs to himself. He remembers that he didn't catch her name after he’s already gone.

About a week goes by and Seren hasn’t run into this Mark guy. For whatever reason, Seren was a bit sad about it. Having a name to a face now made it seem like there was even more of a reason why they continued to cross paths. She kept the feeling to herself, but her friend’s still asked her everyday if there had been a new run in with him. The few places they had run in with one another hadn’t failed to make her giggle a bit thinking about it. But as she stands in front of a cute little restaurant waiting for Athena, she forgets about Mark for a little while.

From inside the restaurant, Mark is sitting at a table with his friends from the basketball incident and two others. When he looks up from his meal, he smacks his tallest friend’s arm as he realizes Seren outside. “Johnny, What do I do?” He spats out, keeping a watch on where Seren is swaying around to.

“Go talk to her?” His other friend says from across the table.

“Ty, I’m nervous dude,” Mark says, glancing at all his friends.

“Why are you nervous?” Johnny speaks with his mouth half full.

“Because everytime I talk to see her, something ridiculous happens. This time will be no different, I’m sure.” His other friend snorts as he’s eating his food, remembering the dog’s getting tangled around the two of them. “Sicheng, shut up.”

“You really should just talk to her..” The last and final friend at the table speaks up. “If something ridiculous happens again you have six things to talk about on you first date.”

“Doyoung,” Mark slumps into his chair, “I don’t even know her name.”

“You what?” Sicheng snorts again, this time almost losing his food.

Mark whacks his arm this time, glaring at him. “I just never had the chance to ask her, okay?”

“Go ask her for her name and her number, you idiot.” Sicheng says, rubbing his hand across his arm where Mark hit him.

Mark pushes himself out of his chair and heads towards the door.

Meanwhile, Seren spots her friend across the street and is trying to motion her towards her. One hand holding her phone, the other free, she waves them around. She’s not paying any attention behind her, which she should have been. Mark is a few steps behind her, trying to work up the courage to talk to her again. He clenches his fists and takes a deep breath before he walks up towards her.

Seren is still trying to get Athena’s attention, waving her hands around still. As Seren starts to give up and throws her hands down, she hits Mark upside the head. In that moment, Athena finds Seren and as Seren’s eyes widen, Athena covers her mouth with a laugh. Seren shuts her eyes as she turns around. “I am so sorry..” She says before she opens her eyes again. Mark is rubbing his forehead, one eye shut but he still cracks a smile.

“I was just about to say this was going too smoothly..” He laughs out.

“Jesus Christ, I’m so sorry. It doesn’t hurt does it?” Seren looks at the spot, knowing she hit him with her phone.

“I’ll be alright.” He tips his head as she looks down at her feet, scuffing her foot along the ground. “Really… What is your name? I’ve never asked..” Mark speaks up, dipping his head down to look at her face.

“Oh… Serenity..” She looks up, “But most people call me Seren.” Athena pops up next to her as she finishes her sentence. Mark lifts his hand up to wave and turns his attention back to Seren.

“Really, Seren, it’s okay.” He continues.

“I am sorry though, Mark.. Is there anything I can do to make it better?” Seren leans back on her foot, biting the inside of her lip.

Mark smiled at the fact she remembered his name, then thinks of the cheesiest thing and can’t talk himself out of saying it. “Yes, there is actually..” Seren raises her eyebrow in response. “Can I have your number?”

Seren looks down as she smiles and Athena makes an auditable noise as she walks off from the conversation towards the restaurant to get a seat. They exchange numbers and stand for a while before Seren excuses herself to go to lunch. Mark laughs as he follows behind her, knowing that he is also here for lunch. Before she can open the door, he grabs it for her and holds it. “Oh jesus Christ…” Seren blurts out. “You’re eating here too?”

“Was here before you..” He points to his friends, two of which she recognizes, as they wave back.

Athena leans over the table when she sits down and talks quietly to her. “I don’t know what it is about you and that guy but go figure he knows that really cute guy… Like, you guys are a fucking oddity in the universe.”

Seren smiles as she looks over, to catch Mark already glancing at her. “Maybe I can tell you who he is at some point.. I feel like I’ll be running into Mark again very soon.”


End file.
